Talk:Board wargame

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Military history: Technology / North America / United States Start‑class

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Article problems[edit]

I've been asked to explain my tagging of the article. The main problem is that there are numerous statements of opinion, as well as unsourced assertions of fact, and while the result will look damn ugly, I'm going to take a few minutes to citation tag every suspect sentence. Correcting, deleting or sourcing these statements would be a good start.

The Overview section is particular objectionable. It's written like an essay, is near to completely unencyclopedic, and blows huge holes through WP:OR. RGTraynor 18:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As I can find time (ha!) and find specific references, some of it will be cleaned up. However, I do note a lot of tags on individual sentences when the entire paragraph is sourced by the citation at the end of the paragraph.... --Rindis (talk) 19:36, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Especially where a sentence states an opinion or a fact which could be challenged, it needs an inline citation.

One other problem is the frequent use of supposition. One example is this sentence: "The boom came to an end, and was followed by the usual bust, at the beginning of the 1980s, most markedly with the acquisition of SPI by TSR in 1982." No one doubts that TSR acquired SPI, but where's the reliable source linking that to a downturn in wargames? "Usual bust" also presupposes a cyclical rise-and-fall in the industry, a premise also not sourced.

A very grave problem - one I'm not going to go out of my way to bust chops on, but someone else might well - is the nature of the sources themselves. Without exception, they're all to personal websites, blogposts and the like, and those fail WP:EL by leaps and bounds; someone could, for instance, readily challenge Greg Costikyan's personal website as an unbiased source to the decline of the industry. To the greatest extent possible, print sources should be found for these assertions. RGTraynor 21:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the nature of the sources is the easiest to answer:

Site of the industry's Charles S. Roberts Awards.
Corporate website.
Print magazine.
Personal website (opinionated, but what's sourced is fact)
Company website. (Okay, so it's a one-person company...)
Blog—reprint of an article from a print magazine.
Internet archive.
Company website.
Personal website—reprint from a column (I believe print, might have been a web-zine).
News blurb (hmm. link seems to have died, darn it).
Book (yes, printed, twice)
Web-zine column.

Not exactly great, but nowhere near as bad as you characterize. I'd like to add more print magazines, but finding the articles I need has been taking more effort than I've had. --Rindis (talk) 16:44, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When half of those sources don't qualify as reliable sources right out of the gate, yeah, that's pretty bad. RGTraynor 23:27, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

According to James Lowder, editor of Hobby Games: The 100 Best, "Greg Costikyan is CEO of Manifest Games, a start-up devoted to providing a viable path to market for independently developed computer games. He has designed more than 30 commercially published board, role-playing, computer, online, and mobile games since the 1970s, is the winner of five Origins Awardss, the Maverick Award for untiring promotion of independently published games, and is an inductee into the Academy of Adventure Gaming's Hall of Fame. He has written on games, game design, and game industry business issues for publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal Interactive, Salon, and The Escapist, and is the author of four published science fiction novels." In other words, Costikyan pretty much sounds like an expert in the field. Just because something is online doesn't necessarily mean it's readily dismissible as unreliable. And, similarly, just because something is in print doesn't mean its unimpeachable. --Craw-daddy | T | 21:25, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This type of thing is exactly why I'm asking for clarification of the problems. You characterize all of the sources as being personal websites or blogs, I point out that only two are, and then you say 'over half' are unacceptable. Which ones and why? --Rindis (talk) 23:05, 10 February 2010 (UTC)ὫὫὫὫὫὫὫὫὫ[reply]